Wagaya no Oinari-sama. – 17

Episode at a Glance:
After leaving the school with Byakki, Tooru manages to get away from the other demons with the help of his friend Shuuichi. Seeing the two of them board a bus, Kuugen, Tsukuyomi, and Bekira follow them in a Black Cat Taxi. While on route, Tsukuyomi explains that he’s a Shinzoku (神族), a divine being from the heavens, and works as a Hokangakari (保管係), someone responsible for managing dangerous spiritual activity amongst humans. As for why he’s after Byakki, Tsukuyomi claims she’s an unstable being who is more dangerous when she’s near death, which he found out when she was killed in the land of the Shinzoku before. As Byakki evidently isn’t dead now, he adds that he committed a taboo and revived her in order to put an end to the chaos caused by her death.

As for Bekira, she’s a former human who became an agent for the Shinzoku and works as a doctor specializing in magical medication. She’s also responsible for placing the tattoos on Byakki’s body, which gives off a signal for them to locate her and suppresses her hungry for other living things’ life force. As Tsukuyomi further explains, Byakki is really simple-minded and can’t tell the difference between good and bad, thus why she takes instructions from a parent, who happens to be the first person she sees upon waking up. Since Enju is hoping to become the ruler of the demons with Byakki, she’s frantically in search of Tooru at the moment. However, Tsukuyomi says he doesn’t know who stole Byakki nor why she was delivered to Tooru.

Off in a nearby park, Inamochi is demonstrating his new product to Enju, who doesn’t wish to involve innocent bystanders to test it out. After Inamochi explains the details about it, Enju wonders why he’s willing to go so far for her, even if she’s a regular customer, so he explains that he hopes she can revive the demons and cause havoc on the Shinzoku. Meanwhile, Kuugen is infuriated by Tsukuyomi’s suggestion that someone might have sent Byakki to Tooru as part of a personal grudge. Back at the Takagami house, Noboru is overjoyed at Kou’s cooking progress, when he gets a call from Tooru’s teacher informing him that he left his bag. Thinking that Tooru might’ve gotten invovled in something, Noboru decides to go look for him and Kou insists on coming along.

Low on cash, Tooru is forced to get off the bus with Byakki and decides to walk to the school in search of Ogami. On their way, Tooru gets caught by some of Enju’s subordinates, but Mubyou comes along to save him. With a summoned flaming demon to deal with though, Mubyou tells Tooru to take off. Before Mubyou can act, Bekira arrives and quickly dispatches the demon first, after which Tsukuyomi asks Mubyou to borrow the Sakasaen to help catch Byakki. While he hopes to reverse Byakki’s life absorbtion with it, Mubyou thinks it’s unreasonable (plus no longer has the Sakasaen), so she diverts the topic to why Kuugen is working with him. However, Kuugen doesn’t remember, so Mubyou reminds her of how Tsukuyomi was the one that sealed her away several hundred years ago. Realizing this, Kuugen is initially infuriated, but says she no longer holds a grudge, much to the local god Mubyou’s relief. Instead, she suggests that the Shinzoku brought Byakki to their land and killed her because her pure-looking white figure didn’t sit well with them, with her being a demon and all. And for their reckless and excessive actions, they’ve brought hell upon themselves in the form of Byakki’s curse. Hearing this, Tsukuyomi criticizes Kuugen for being a foolish fox and says he’s no longer cooperating with her, so both him and Bekira leave.

At Noboru’s school, Tooru runs into Misaki, who takes off running when Enju, Tomine, and their new product arrive asking for Byakki’s return. Meanwhile, Kou seems to have discovered where he is, so Noboru and her start heading that way.

Impressions:
Lots of explanations this week, which can be easily overlooked if you don’t care to pay attention. Because of this, I tried to be as detailed as possible in the summary without being overly wordy. (I guess it wouldn’t be much of a summary then…) According to what was revealed though, it seems that there’s more to Tsukuyomi and Bekira (as suspected), but I can’t really say they’re worse than Inamochi at this point. With that said, I’m still on the fence about the Shinzoku after what Kuugen insinuated about them and Byakki, so hopefully they’ll confirm some of these ideas next time.

I say “hopefully” with low expectations though, since it seems like the producers don’t really care for previews anymore. As of late, they’re either about something totally unrelated (e.g. this week), or are totally misleading (e.g. last week). While time constraints may have lead to previews not matching their subsequent episodes, I don’t believe this is the case given how Wagaya no Oinari-sama’s production quality has been consistently good so far. Because of this, I’m almost inclined to say that the producers are purposely throwing us off on what to expect each week. As for why though, it may be simply out of boredom or they may actually have something in mind for later. Your guess is as good as mine. Regardless, the preview dialogue is probably a better indication of what will happen next time.

Other than that, a lot of Mubyou this week and I still continue to enjoy her split-second attitude changes, which depend on who she’s talking to. Speaking of which, I think we’re seeing more of Mubyou than Ebisu now, which I’m all for, despite how amusing Ono Daisuke is.